How does CIC tell if a relationship is real or fake

[steerpike]

Vow

“The system allows racial biases to creep in the selection process. They could use their authority to put it bluntly and crudely, to keep Canada white,” Satzewich noted

They "could" but they don't. In fact, brown-skinned people from Indian and Pakistan especially are not required to have the same burden of proof as white-skinned people for family class sponsorships.

 

[Graihn]

They "could" but they don't. In fact, brown-skinned people from Indian and Pakistan especially are not required to have the same burden of proof as white-skinned people for family class sponsorships.

How do you know that? And why not?

 

[Desi-girl]

Hi forum people, am very happy to write here for my first time. i have been reading both good and discouraging messages here for a whole week. But today i get strength to write also. I started in August 2013 and my husband received approved letter in September 2013. In November our file went in interview queue up to now but my husband write to Embassy in January 2014, reply was that my interview day will be communicated very soon. Now this week, i receive email that interview is March 2014 and it seems they need me to prove my marriage to my husband.
Yet our marriage is real, we love each other too much but how do i prove to interview visa officer?
Am very very worried. i read so many things here that causes to ask for interview and most of them are like in our file.
- met my husband online, we chat so so much about many things for 4 months
- after my husband comes to visit my home country for 4 days
- i go to his country with him we get married and stayed together 2weeks he goes to canada.
- he is divorced 7 years ago, but me i have never married before but have child from past friendship
- he is 18years olders me (me 32yrs and him 50years) but he looks very younger than his years.
- he has masters degree, i have 1 degree

so these are some of the things worrying me. so you think i will be approved at interview. Please forum help me on what to do on interviews. We love each other and we dont want anything to separate us becuase even waiting is so stressing. Thank you
yours'
Newbride

Something like this was a case with an Indian spousal application. The wife (applicant) was 8 years older than husband (sponsor). The wife was called for interview. The husband flew to India to be with his wife for the interview. The officers did not want to see him, were rude to the wife and kicked them out after 15 minutes without listening to anything or letting them prove anything. The officers already had their mind set to reject the application from the get go. Next day, they got rejection letter.
Someone else, in a similar situation had a nicer officer and got the visa.

It really depends on the visa officer who is taking the interview. Unfortunately, you have a lot of red flags. Show them more proof that you have been keeping in touch after the wedding. Good luck with your interview and I hope everything works out for you.

 

[charmainefrances]

Background:

My husband is 32 years older than me
I am 30 and he is 62.
I arrived in canada under a work permit in june 2009. 2 weeks after, i met my (now husband for 3 years and 4 months).
We got married on sept. Of 2010
Applied inland in nov. 2010
File tranferred from vegreville to edmonton in oct. 2011
Reasons: age gap, short courtship, doubting if our marriage is genuine, asking if i'm married back home. That i did not declare my son when i applied for a visa to come to canada.

Month after the transfer, we submitted everything we could to prove that our marriage is true, genuine and authentic. We did this every month until april of 2013.

Aug. 30, 2013 - we received a call in notice from cic edmonton asking us for interview. The requirements the io requested : lease/ rent agreement, pictures from wedding, trips etc., t4, notice of assessment, t1 , paystubs, bills, and option c and bank statements(Most of the req. were tax related, it's probably because the io want to make sure that we have money to provide for our dependent)

Sept. 12,2013- interview day- we arrived at cic edm very prepared! Did not even feel nervous at all! We are confident and we know that what we need to do is to show who we really are!

My interview lasted for 1 hr and 15 min.
Questions asked:
What is my name, bday, my parents name
What is my husbands name, birthday, parents name, siblings and where they live.
Where and when we meet?
Who proposed, describe the moment
When and where is our wedding?
How many people attended? Names of attendees, reception?
1st date? Where when, what we ordered?
Are we sexually active?
Do we want to have kids?
Name of my son, names of my husbands daughter, names of grandkids
How is the relationship between my husband and son

And then suddenly the io stopped typing because she said the computer stopped working. So we started again from the very beginning. I think for me this is to test if i will answer the questions the same thing.

Then, she asked me 3 times in different ways , where do i work, she probably want to make sure that i am not working anywhere else.

Describe our apartment
Who pay bills ?
Where does my husband work?
How much salary?
Do i send money to my home country? How much?
She asked if I'm in Canada
Asked if i have a criminal record or convicted

At the end of the interview, she just said that the only reason why our file was transferred is because of our age gap. Then i said, i know! Lol! I said that , when we applied in 2010, we did not even know that there are red flags like that. What we presented them is the real us!

Then i showed some personal stuff like the crosstitch i made as a birthday gift for my husbands grand daughter, cards from friends and family. Our wedding invitation.

And that's it!

Then it's my husband's turn!!

His interview lasted for 45 minutes. And he was asked the same questions and he answered the same as mine with a little bit of elaboration lol!

When the io told him that our file was tranferred because of age gap, he told the io that this has been happening eversince, just like cleopatra and julis ceasar, charlie chaplin and his wife oona etc. etc. that was the killer answer! Lol!
The io was smiling while typing this my husband said!

All in all the interview went well! The atmosphere inside the interview room was very non threatening, it was actually full of laughter. Me and my husband are very happy people by nature! So i think we really gave a positive vibes inside the interview room.

Exactly 1 month after the interview, oct12,2013, i received an email requesting for medical examination. Then aip and owp arrived on oct. 16.

Medical examination done Oct. 23, 2013.

cic received medical Oct. 31, 2013


Now waiting for 2nd stage approval. (As per Cic call centre- background checks for me is finished January 16, 2014), now waiting for Canadian embassy in manila to contact my dependent. I know it will still be long process because i have a dependent back home. But it's alright! I always believe in GOD's perfect time!

 

[Desi-girl]

Guys could you tell me how my application looks from outside. I just wanna know should I expect an interview for my wife.

In summer 2011 I posted a personal ad in my home country Christian magazine
First letter she wrote to me was October 2011, just asking about Christian communities in Canada but we did not talk much
In august 2012 she was deleting her old emails and decided to look me up to see what I looked like (I did not post a picture with my ad). She found my profile on social media website and I had some pictures of traveling to her home country (I had no idea she was from there because when she wrote me she was living in another country, I just went there to visit family). She commented one of my photos (did not know who it was at first) and we casually started talking.
For half a year we were writing letters to each other as friends, we talked on Skype maybe twice a month.
Gradually we began to like each other and in March 2013 decided we should meet in summer. We started to talk more and more. Our talks became more personal and we started to Skype for many hours.
In July 2013 she moved back to her home country and I came for 3 weeks. We spent time together for 3 weeks, visiting her family, she met my family etc.
After I came back to Canada in a week I proposed because I felt I could not live without her and want to spend out lives together.
We married in November 2013
My parents, brothers came with me from Canada to attend the wedding. Her family traveled from another country to be there. We had a beautiful church wedding with about 30 people.
We are both same age, same religion, same language, same education. I think lookwise we are pretty close. We are late 20s never been married before, no kids.
My wife does not even want to come to Canada but of course CIC won't believe that.

Looks like a great relationship to me! Everything is similar and you built up your relationship from 2011. I don't think you have anything to worry about,you most likely may not even have an interview.

 

[Desi-girl]

I'm pretty surprised they flagged a case because of 7 years age difference. And yet they don't automatically flag arranged marriages.

Because arranged marriages is a custom in some countries and it is normal from their point of view.

 

[SenoritaBella]

I don't know the specific customs in Zambia and Burundi but if it's like most other African customs, there is usually a traditional ceremony(or ceremonies) before a civil marriage. Did you guys do follow all the traditions? If not, this could be a reason for an interview. Order your GCMS notes to know what the officer's concerns which should hopefully help as you prepare for your interview. Your husband can do this for you but you will need to sign an authorization for CIC to send the notes to him.

During our online dating we shared quite alot and discussed many things about our past lives and many others. we would even skype, emails and call each other. We are so open to each other, he is the one who proposed when he came and i had anticipated it becuase we had been so close and in love. No, he stayed in my country (zambia) for 4 days, then later i went to his country (Burundi) where i stayed until we married (2weeks). He could not stay longer becuase of his job which is very tight in canada. He came back to visit me for 1 week and we travelled to Tanzania for a holiday.
For sure everything between us is so real and we plan a traditional party in December this year.

 

[Outlandish]

They "could" but they don't. In fact, brown-skinned people from Indian and Pakistan especially are not required to have the same burden of proof as white-skinned people for family class sponsorships.

This isn't true. Just because arranged marriages are a norm in those (and many other parts of the world) areas, doesn't mean they don't require as much proof. There have been numerous cases where the sponsor has been asked for additional documents to support the genuineness of their marriage even after the initial application package (containing all wedding, honeymoon pics etc), which further delays this already long process. As it is, the timeline for CHC-Islamabad is 32 months! That in itself is a big test to see whether or not the couple stays together during the long wait.

 

[Ellasg]

;D I'm glad my sponsor is better looking* than me then.

 

[Ellasg]

Although I'm Portuguese-Japanese Brazilian and he's Irish Canadian, I think our VO should stamp my passport right away because we look pretty darn cute together!
And I don't have the "evil and manipulative illegal immigrant" look in my eyes
He's also 7 years and 1 month older than me.

 

[Rose13]

Hi Newbride,
I have read your posts on several forums. But my advise is to be confident, maintain eye contact and provide as many evidence as you can get. I have read so many threads here that are really encouraging so hopefully you should be fine. I hope to share more with you are i go through my interviews that is very soon. Believe in your relationship and hope for the best.
Otherwise, i wish everyone all the best.

 

[Ellasg]

My boyfriend and I are camera shy so we wouldn't have sent many pictures if it wasn't for his mom, who loves photographing us.
But throughout the 13 months we lived together, we didn't think about "doing things for CIC", so I didn't save ALL our chat history and e-mails, we didn't save the receipts when we bought dishware, flat iron, vacuum cleaner, etc. for the apartment, we were living together anyway and enjoying each other's company was our priority seeing that we knew I'd have to go back to Japan sooner or later (unfortunately, sooner than we expected).
We traveled to Calgary last August, we spent almost every weekend at his parent's, I've met his co-workers, we used to hang out with his friends every week, we've shared so many precious moments that we didn't want to waste by "posting on the Internet"... But we couldn't prove that, because I didn't come to Canada hoping to immigrate, with a list of "Proofs of Relationship" from the CIC website. I guess we were careless.
I am sad we didn't have as much evidence we should... :-[ But honestly, if I had saved and printed every single text, wouldn't that be suspicious too?
They say every evidence helps, but how much is too much?

 

[Graihn]

My boyfriend and I are camera shy so we wouldn't have sent many pictures if it wasn't for his mom, who loves photographing us.
But throughout the 13 months we lived together, we didn't think about "doing things for CIC", so I didn't save ALL our chat history and e-mails, we didn't save the receipts when we bought dishware, flat iron, vacuum cleaner, etc. for the apartment, we were living together anyway and enjoying each other's company was our priority seeing that we knew I'd have to go back to Japan sooner or later (unfortunately, sooner than we expected).
We traveled to Calgary last August, we spent almost every weekend at his parent's, I've met his co-workers, we used to hang out with his friends every week, we've shared so many precious moments that we didn't want to waste by "posting on the Internet"... But we couldn't prove that, because I didn't come to Canada hoping to immigrate, with a list of "Proofs of Relationship" from the CIC website. I guess we were careless.
I am sad we didn't have as much evidence we should... :-[ But honestly, if I had saved and printed every single text, wouldn't that be suspicious too?
They say every evidence helps, but how much is too much?

I know what you mean, we didn't take many photos at first when I realized we needed better photos I made sure we got photos on every event!

Remember last Christmas Eve with us and family, I was like "ok, you there! Take a photo of everyone, and everyone better smile and look frigging happy!!!"
Lol

 

[Ellasg]

I know what you mean, we didn't take many photos at first when I realized we needed better photos I made sure we got photos on every event!

Remember last Christmas Eve with us and family, I was like "ok, you there! Take a photo of everyone, and everyone better smile and look frigging happy!!!"
Lol

Well, I've heard you're both drop-dead gorgeous so one picture is worth 1 thousand, don't worry.

 

[Avadava]

@ Graihn: seems like you will forever be known as "drop dead gorgeous" on this forum. I guess is a price you have to pay for being like that